These types of screening companies base their whole business model around the fact that the majority of members will fail. And fail repeatedly whilst paying for the privelege. Even better…the only ones to blame for that failure is themselves….it’s ingenious.

That’s why they market themselves so hard….they need a constant churn of new hopefuls to submit to the listings. If all the submissions were great they’d soon have no business as the composers would rapidly outgrow the service.

The profit isn’t in the small minority of members who “make it”…they are just the tip of the iceberg and great marketing copy. It’s in the 80-90% who’s music isn’t good enough and in many cases never will be.

if i remember clearly, most folks on those pay to play sites are more artist focused than sync focused. only a few had more than 25 tracks tracks on their page and most that ive heard were more full length songs with vocals rather than instrumental cues. Its pretty much a gateway to this field, which is a testament on artists having a few cues in their catalog of mostly singer songwriter songs. i had no clue about music libraries and that theres a way to make money through writing music for picture that didnt depend on insider contacts before i joined. Its when i started getting serious about sync and heavily researched the ins and outs online that i realized paying to play was not the norm. In fairness, its them that got me compelled to even give this a shot. but if i wasnt so impulsive and actually did more research before signing up on a whim I may be in a better predicament in my career at this point.

Pay to play can definitely be a scam, buyer beware. But, I have to admit I’ve used it cautiously, and in one instance was rewarded quite nicely for my effort. I suppose if I didn’t have that success I’d be blasting the business model. But now, I’m leaning towards saying do your research and be smart about it.

good article. i wouldnt consider the pay for feedback option a scam. if this is being offered by an established top artist working in your genre of music then their feedback can be invaluable. if on the other hand this is a bunch of faceless so called composer/producers with no credits to their name sitting in a bedroom somewhere in cyber space then i would stay well clear.

Any library or service that requires payment in advance of submission should be avoided. It is common and fair that IF your specific work is placed via THEIR efforts that you share in the upfront license fees. After all, they’ve done the legwork to get your work placed and handle the paperwork. No-one should be asking for a fee just to listen to your music. When it comes to back-end/publishing, that’s a different discussion.

I totally respect your opinion, Gael. However, had I never paid for submissions (2 services come to mind), I would never have had the placements I have today. Not looking to re-open the long, painful debate here but there are different ways to skin the cat or at least begin to skin the cat.